


take what you need while there's time

by isloremipsumafterall



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isloremipsumafterall/pseuds/isloremipsumafterall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin can do nothing but watch history repeat itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take what you need while there's time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plinys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/gifts).



The first thing he does is visit Luke, after the battle, appearing young once more and giving his son a better idea to remember him by.

 

The second thing he does is try to appear to Leia; it’s while she’s sitting in the Falcon on her way to Coruscant, looking over documents and the last of the Empire’s movements.

 

“Leia,” He says her name, full of regret, he’s done so much to her and taken so much away and she is not like Luke who smiles and believes in the good of things so deeply like Padme does. She’s more like him, decisive and knowing what needs to be done but far better than he could ever be because she continues to fight for what’s right.

 

He wishes he had her conviction in that when he was younger, perhaps then he wouldn’t have been swayed by Palpatine’s words.

 

She doesn’t look up at her name, her eyes never move away from what she’s reading in front of her and Anakin sighs.

 

“I don’t know how to say I’m sorry,” He was always awful at that, so full in the belief that he was right but he has to try now; she deserves to hear it.

 

Leia’s eyes flicker briefly, a quick glance around the room that would have had him holding his breath had he still had it.

 

“I owe you so many apologies.” He tortured her, destroyed her home in front of her very eyes, took someone she loved away from her without remorse but he feels it deeper than ever now. “You look so much like your mother.”

 

He smiles at the memory of Padme, her hair done up so similar to Leia’s and wonders if perhaps Bail Organa taught her such things in memory of Padme.

 

If he did then it was more than Anakin ever did for her.

 

Leia’s eyes fall on the area he stands, Anakin reaches his hand out, hoping she can see him, just hoping she can hear him.

 

“Luke may have forgiven you,” Leia finally says, staring at dead air, “But I haven’t.”

 

Anakin feels burned by those words, nearly recoils back and flickers away to take the sadness out of his daughter’s eyes.

 

Her eyes are so much more like his.

 

“Give me time.” Leia finally says, so quiet he almost misses it.

 

It’s more than he would have given himself and he nods in silent gratitude and disappears.

 

~~

 

She name’s her son Ben; next to him Obi-Wan chuckles and shakes his head.

 

“Our fates are forever intertwined.” Obi-Wan tells him, a spark in his eyes that reminds Anakin of so many years before when they were Master and Padawan and everything between them was all right.

 

It’s a tentative bridge mended and Anakin has to turn away least he can’t take the very gratitude from that without it overwhelming him.

 

Ben will be strong in the Force, that much they can sense and Anakin knows he ought to tell Luke but doesn’t; it’s Leia’s decision to tell her brother when Ben shows aptitude for it.

 

She smiles at him and holds him with such care, already a finer parent than he could have ever been.

 

When her gaze falls into the shadows of the room where he and Obi-Wan stand she says nothing, blinking once in acknowledgment and then turning away.

 

~~

 

Everything goes wrong and all Anakin feels is despair again.

 

Snoke whispers to Ben as Palpatine once did to him and Anakin can do nothing to stop it. Not even warning Luke helps and as the younglings fall to the ground and Luke walks away Anakin closes his eyes and curses all his mistakes.

 

~~

 

“Father.” Leia calls to him, her voice broken, “He tried to follow you.”

 

Anakin doesn’t have the words to explain to how he never would have wanted this.

 

Leia could never forgive him now, not when her son does it all his name.

 

“All I ever wanted was him safe.” She whispers.

 

“You did nothing wrong.” He finally says, because the chasm between him and Leia is too far and it threatens to swallow him; a shadow of himself or not.

 

Leia looks haunted regardless.

 

~~

 

He tries so hard to reach Ben but the boy won’t let him in.

 

He’s looking for Darth Vader, not Anakin Skywalker and that part of him is gone.

 

“Go back to your mother,” Anakin says, “You need to value the time you have with her and she loves you.”

 

He remembers his own mother breathing her last breath in his arms.

 

“She’ll forgive you.”

 

Where she couldn’t forgive him.

 

Ben stares at his mask and dons his own.

 

~~

 

“I tried.” He whispers when he appears back in front of Leia, vowing it to be his last and not bring her anymore pain.

 

“I know.” Leia sighs, straightening her back and going back to being the General, walking away from him.

 

~~

 

Rey is so much like Luke and Padme it nearly hurts.

 

He hasn’t seen Luke since his son cast himself out of the Force and hid away but Rey, taken away from Luke at such a young age and hidden, he finds in his stead.

 

“Perhaps we will always start out in the desert,” Anakin muses, thinking of Tatooine where he and Luke both grew up, “To learn to survive.”

 

It’s a cruel lesson for Skywalker’s to learn.

 

He helps her dream of an ocean, because at least then it can give her hope.

 

~~

 

Leia watches Rey go on the Falcon, she stands so tall despite how she lost so much and once more Anakin is struck by the strength she must wield.

 

“Rey will find him.” Anakin says, breaking his promise not to talk to Leia again though he cannot help himself.

 

He has always been bad at that even in death.

 

“I know.” Leia says, breathing in deeply and looking over at Anakin, “Look after her. Look after them both.”

 

She doesn’t have to say who both are, Anakin nods his head, disappears before her eyes and tries again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> (I've probably just massacred Anakin's character and I'm so sorry)


End file.
